Our Stories

My name is Corey. I am 33 years old, and I am an alcoholic. I took my first drink at a very young age. I was 10 the first time I got drunk. I certainly didn’t drink all the time back then, but I probably thought about it every day—I couldn’t wait for the next

I am a 29 year old alcoholic/drug addict, and I have been battling with addiction since I was about 13 years old. For many years, I thought that my life was manageable—up until about eight years ago when things started to really spiral out of control.

I am a 30 year old alcoholic who thought my life was completely hopeless and unmanageable. I was born in New Orleans to a teen mother who was in and out of my life—for the most part—until my grandparents stepped up and took on the role as my parents. My father was absent from my life until I was about 8 years old. It wasn’t until then that I found out that he was a hardcore alcoholic.

After struggling for years with anxiety, depression and a severe addiction to alcohol, I was led by my higher power to Grace House on April 25, 2014—where I entered into treatment for the first time. My parents divorced when I was five years old. I was raised by my grandmother until the age of eighteen.

By my high school years, I was involved in a lot of extracurricular activities like dancing, modeling, and cheer leading. I also started drinking and using at this phase of my life. This was the beginning of my chaos. By the 10th grade, the effects of my drinking and using really started catching up to me.

I had lots of friends and a decent family life—I just never felt like I belonged. I started drinking at the age of 16. Drugs followed soon after. This started the life I was to know for the next 35 years. I’ve been addicted to many different things-drugs, food, relationships and alcohol.

Today, staying clean is the most important thing in my life. I am involved in my life, and I am constantly learning to be a productive member of society. I have ups and downs, but I know that I have no reason to use again today. I love being alive today, and to have had that awakening was worth everything to me.

Alcohol and drugs were my solution for many years, but, somewhere down the line, it had turned its back on me. By working the steps and building my support group in the fellowship of Alcoholics Anonymous, I began to learn how to deal with everyday life issues that I would normally get intoxicated over.

When my oldest son was six months old I injured my back and was prescribed narcotic pain medication. At this time of my life I was a stay at home mom in a happy marriage. Eventually I became addicted to the pills.

Five years ago, I entered Grace House broken and completely lost—I had no idea just how bad. Although I was broken, there was room for hope to come in through the cracks. I am thankful to have had hope.

In the humid presence of mid-morning, the shrieking howl of the Steamboat Natchez was my daily reveille. Noisome refuse washed up by the Mississippi would induce in me a sensation of nausea, which would linger until, clambering out of my living quarters beneath the wharf, I had procured a bottle of whiskey and drained it of its contents.

In my mind I was not the ‘stereotypical’ alcoholic: I was a law school graduate with a promising future who had just had a string of bad luck, a young kid just making up for a mild college career by drinking and sometimes carrying it a little too far, who thought the drinking was something I could always turn off when the time called for it. Problem was that time never came.

I reached a point of hopelessness and misery before I came into Bridge House. I would pray every night that I wouldn’t wake up the next morning. I was consumed by anger, fear, resentment, guilt and shame.

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